


What you wouldn't say

by bluebells



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: ASMR for Combat Medics, M/M, Pining, Sharing a Bed, Two men cuddling in bed completely entangled because they're not gay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-16
Updated: 2019-09-16
Packaged: 2020-10-19 21:44:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20664269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebells/pseuds/bluebells
Summary: Baptiste remembers Mauga down to his bones.





	What you wouldn't say

On the rare days that end on safe terrain, Baptiste can lay down arms and allow himself to feel the leaden weariness kept at bay through months of single-minded survival. If he's lucky, there is a bed, and if luckier still, it will have sheets. When the sheets are clean and freshly laundered, stretched and moulded to every line of the mattress, that simple detail can loosen the knot between his shoulders.

Somewhere beneath years of evasion, shoulder checks, and the few necessary murders, there is a memory of keen relief. Subliminal and sinuous, he forgets what his body learned until he is pressing his face into crisp linen and sucking in deep lungfuls of cotton and laundry detergent.

Between one breath and the next, he is transported.

Talon is behind him now, but in his weariest moments, old habits knitted into the cords of his muscles unspool.

With a weary groan of relief, he draws the heaviest of his blankets up behind his back, cocooning himself with support behind his hips. He shivers from the ghost sensation of knees tucking up behind his, a body warming him from shoulders to thighs and the cradle of a larger frame moulding to his back. A thick, strong arm sliding around his waist and drawing him in. Soft, grizzled nuzzling to his hair. Lips on the back of his neck.

Breaths evening slow and deep.

Mauga's answering sigh of relief when Baptiste wove their fingers together and tucked them to his chest.

Peace. That's what peace felt like.

They were so young. Those memories are treasured. Comfort was precious, but still tightened his chest because guilt lingers with a bitter aftertaste to those with a conscience.

Baptiste squirms in his nest of blankets and pushes his face deeper into their recess to hide from the hot flush of regret.

It's long over now. It's done.

But, sometimes, he still thinks about them.

///

Talon were the ones who asked for Baptiste's humanity.

From 2130 on those evenings when Mauga appeared at his door, the heavy assault tank was the one who helped Baptiste keep it.

Soon after they met, Mauga firmly established his loyalty and consistency as a front liner who could protect his team. He didn't ask for too much in return.

Maybe if they didn't stay up talking so late, Baptiste could have bottled his doubts and fears until they were repurposed into something Talon-approved. They didn't talk about the future: that dark, shifting grey of uncertainty ahead was too uncomfortable. Neither of them humoured the common bravado of mess hall talk and the next inconsequent obsession where soldiers would splurge their money.

Not many expected to live long enough to enjoy a retirement plan.

Mauga did.

He planned to fight as long as needed, as long as his body allowed him. He could take a lot of punishment, and with Baptiste at his side, they really were unstoppable.

Unlike Baptiste who joined Talon as a war orphan, Mauga enlisted to keep his large and sprawling family safe. Neither Samoa nor Haiti had enjoyed the protection of Overwatch during the omnic crisis, but Talon had come to Mauga's home first, recognising the strategic opportunity of its position in the Polynesian triangle. They offered Samoa protection in exchange for the famous fortitude of its people.

"They were just starting the heavy assaults then." Mauga would roll into Baptiste's side on that standard issue bed, bury his face in his neck and murmur about the family he left back home. "More of us wanted to go, but Sina reminded us -- one of us is worth three of them. And if we all went, who would protect the aiga? Who would work the land? As long as I'm here, I can send money back; Talon keeps patrolling the water."

Baptiste had stared at the ceiling on those long nights, playing over Mauga's knuckles splayed on his chest, his neck tingling with every brush of lips on his skin.

It never went farther than this tactile, unspoken offer of comfort, tangled together, almost desperate for an anchor, but Baptiste was no fool. Mauga would have done anything for his team, and for Baptiste he would do everything and more.

If Baptiste only asked.

"Do you think they know what we're doing out here?" Baptiste almost regrets it as soon as he's asked, but it's easier than the words that catch in his throat when Mauga's ankle hooks over his, and the memories of his own family are too painful to reciprocate.

His heart aches thinking of Mauga's grandmother looking out to the long, blue ocean and praying for her children.

Mauga rumbles thoughtfully and the sound vibrates through him with a pleasant tingle. He wonders if Mauga can feel his heart pounding beneath his hand. "You think they guess I cuddle with a cute healer every night?"

Baptiste chuckles a startled noise, dissolving into stifled laughter when that hand snakes around his chest to clutch him tight and close. He pushes back at his friend's shoulder, mercilessly crushing the flutter in his gut.

It is one thing to offer comfort, but something else completely to put it in words. That… is not safe, and the one time Baptiste tried, it ached in the same way as trying to speak about his family.

Because Mauga has to stay in Talon, but Baptiste….

"I mean," He holds his ground when Mauga rises, short stubble grazing his cheek. His stomach dips feeling Mauga's forehead rest against his temple, warm breath rolling down the long stretch of his neck like a physical caress. He shivers and his stomach does that terrible, wonderful flutter thing again, clenching with heat. "Does your family know you kill people to keep them safe?"

The change in the air is immediate and palpable. He feels Mauga's shoulders slump with a heavy sigh, leaning into him.

It's a low blow, but the only one guaranteed to cut Mauga in his stride when he gets brave like this. Baptiste hates to use it against him. He prefers the evenings when Mauga's nostalgia about his family stay light: church gossip, tales of his ulavale nephews, and the antics of the old women are a balm for the both of them.

They only used to do this when a mission went especially bad. Serious wounds, teammates lost or worst: civilians caught in the crossfire. He thinks Mauga felt the loss of their teammates more keenly than strangers, but for Baptiste -- at least their squads made a choice to be there. More and more, he and Mauga came together just for the company; more often they were falling into bed exhausted, shoulder to shoulder until Mauga inevitably tugged him closer in his aggressively affectionate way.

Baptiste didn't notice when things started to change. He isn't stupid. He knows what this feeling means. He knows what Mauga wants. He's pathetically grateful the lights have always turned out by this point, so he doesn't have to see it in his friend's eyes.

Mauga has to stay here, and so it can't happen.

"You know," the soft, rich warmth of Mauga's voice is honey in his ear. "The day that's true? That's the day I gotta go home."

Baptiste frowns, turning to look at him in the dark, but finding only the outline of broad shoulders against the soft, blue glow of his bedside clock.

"Poukisa?"

"We're all gonna answer for this some day, Tiste. We're doing bad things… for good reasons." Baptiste feels him shrug. "I have people to protect. They won't like the way I do it, but it's the only way I know. And when they find out, oi aue." Mauga laughs, dry and thin and fond. "No mercenary megacorp gonna save me from Sina's wrath."

But nobody leaves Talon except in a body bag. Mauga's logic is confusing, the sound of his smile a beacon, and Baptiste is reaching for his face when the meaning finally clicks. His hand freezes, stunned. He blinks into the dark, knowing Mauga watches him, just as blind, and wonders how the man can grin in full knowledge of how he'll leave this world -- and the price he's willing to pay for the ones he loves.

"You're lucky," he says, throat tight.

The hand hovering by Mauga's cheek is caught, long fingers entangle with his and Baptiste's breath catches at the kiss pressed to the back of his knuckles.

"You want them? You can have them."

_ If you take me. We're a package deal.  
_

A hot stone has swollen at the base of Baptiste's throat.

"Free for limited time because they're so freaking annoying on Sundays," Mauga finishes, exasperated at the memory.

Baptiste chokes a wet laugh, tension eased with the joke. He lets Mauga pull him close, hand gently tangled in his locs, and press a muffled laugh to his forehead. He closes his eyes and breathes in the clean scent of Mauga's chest as arms wrap around his back. He's so grateful he aches with it down to his bones.

A week later, Baptiste leaves him on the dock of Monte Cristi and doesn't look back.

///

Baptiste wakes with the dawn, bleary-eyed and twisting in his sheets, the sunlight peeking in through the margins of Venetian blinds. He feels more refreshed than he has in weeks. The phantom sensation of secure arms still linger at his waist.

His comms are blinking with an encrypted message that can only be from one source.

_ Hey. Friends are listening for people reaching out to the angel, so watch your step. Details below. _

_ And our mutual friend was asking about you. What do I tell him? _

He smiles, and something soft twinges in his chest. Muscle memory.

_ Malo le onosa'i _, he types without thinking.

Only after he hits 'send' does he wonder if it's cruel, if Mauga will construe that as encouragement or a challenge. If it would have been better to say nothing at all. His eyes fall shut remembering the possessive almost vengeful glint of Mauga's gaze in the low light of Monsieur Lefort's bar. It had hurt, looking into his eyes and seeing the accusation burn there:_ you left me behind and you didn't even write, motherfucker_. But Mauga let him go, twice now. It's done. They're over. So, what is Baptiste asking him to wait for?

Sighing, he rises to stretch the ache from his shoulders, and hopes that by the third time they meet, he'll know the answer himself.

**Author's Note:**

> A few culturally specific notes:  
\- Samoans (and many Polynesian groups) will commonly make a nickname from the latter half of your name. This is why Mauga calls Baptiste "'Tiste" here instead of the familiar, canonical "Buddy".  
\- Sina is one of the most common names you will encounter for women in Samoan culture. Almost every second folk story featuring a woman will name her 'Sina'. 
> 
> Translations (Haitian Kreyol):  
\- Poukisa / Why
> 
> Translations (Samoan):  
\- Aiga / Family  
\- Malo le onosa'i / Be patient or well done for being patient. The nuance shifts depending on context  
\- Oi aue / Oh boy, oh damn; a general expression of disbelief or exasperation  
\- Ulavale / Naughty or restless


End file.
